Apostacy: no holy nor unholy war
Last night, Channel 4 broadcast a Dispatches documentary on the plight of former Muslims who convert to Christianity in the UK. The programme was entitled, of all things, Unholy War, and was "trailered" by an article in the Observer last Sunday (the programme is to be repeated at 4:25am next Sunday – so anyone who's up for suhoor then might get another chance to see it. Perhaps it'll turn up on YouTube before long (it's already available as a pirate DVD download). Anyway, I was expecting some sort of witch-hunt and a demand to Muslims to explain themselves regarding this issue, but (at least in the parts I watched, since I missed the first quarter of it and the last five minutes because I was making dinner) I didn't see that. The focus was mostly on the dangers apostates face and on dishonest missionary work, mostly by groups based in the USA, which the presenter suggested might make life more difficult for converts to Christianity.
I question the use of the title, Unholy War – I know of no organised campaign of violence against converts to Christianity, or any other religion. To many of us, it might appear that Channel 4's vendetta against this community, manifested in its distorted documentaries, is more worthy of this title. The evidence he presents consists of a few stories of Muslims being estranged from their families on becoming Christian, and of one or two facing threats. They focus on churches which has a number of Iranian and Afghan followers, which they say they cannot identify or depict for fear of reprisals.
In the case of the apostates losing their families or their marriages, this is understandable and happens to converts to other religions, including Islam. I have personally heard a story of a man who converted from Hinduism to Islam and was turned out of his house and told to leave home, and nearly ended up homeless in London. While it's true that many converts to Islam find that their conversions are accepted by their family, if grudgingly, it's also a fact that many don't, particularly if their families have very strong religious (or anti-religious) views of their own. Even in Iraq, a majority Muslim country, a young woman was recently killed for converting to Islam. In Islam, a Muslim (male or female) cannot be married to an ex-Muslim, so if either partner leaves Islam, the marriage cannot continue.
As for the churches with Iranian followers, the fact that certain Pentecostal churches, for example, have Persian-language services is not a secret, even if it is not broadcast loudly. Some of these churches are round the corner from mosques and Muslims pass them, and their noticeboards, every day. Perhaps the situation up north is different from how it is in London. However, I question whether Iranian expatriates here in London really would kill someone who converted out of Islam, given that many of them are probably refugees from the Islamic Republic. Fundamentalist Iranian Shi'ites have no need to seek refuge in London, because they rule Iran, and although I have heard stories of shootings of prominent critics of the Iranian régime here in England, I doubt very much whether they include ordinary Iranians who leave Islam.
The programme, and the Observer article, made the point that Muslim leaders in the UK have been asked to condemn the killing of apostates in Muslim countries, but no such statement has ever been issued. Such a statement from the "leaders" of a Muslim minority in a predominantly Christian country would be entirely pointless, because it would be dismissed out of hand by the leaders of the Muslim countries where this law remains in place. Even within the Muslim community here, the imams and other community leaders cannot prevent killings of apostates any more than they can prevent honour killings, despite having spoken against the latter, because not every Muslim will listen to them. However, it is significant that no such killing has yet taken place in this country, while honour killings are well known of in certain sections of the Muslim community (among others).
The programme also discussed the question of asylum for such people in this country, and one of the pastors said he was very wary of baptising people he thought might be trying to use a religious conversion to buttress a weak asylum claim, but that he had given testimony in support of those he considered genuine. However, it is a fact that such converts have been sent back to Muslim countries from the UK in the past, and that this government is notoriously quick to send back asylum seekers on the flimsiest of grounds; immigration judges are sometimes known to regard keeping the numbers down as their job, and to accuse rape victims of lying or to suggest that it is not torture. In last Sunday's Observer alongside the article on apostates, there was an article about a challenge to this government's policy of sending asylum seekers back to the Congo, despite widespread accusations of torture. If a convert to Christianity from Islam is not a suitable candidate for asylum in any nominally or predominantly Christian country, nobody is.
Of course, it is not acceptable for Muslims to be vandalising churches, as has happened to some church buildings in some Muslim areas in the north, and it ought to be condemned from within the community and fought with the full force of the law from without, but this programme does not demonstrate that there is any sort of "war" against apostates or against Christians carrying out missionary work on Muslims in this country. The article quotes the bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of saying, regarding killings of apostates, that "there is no reason why this kind of thing cannot happen" – in other words, that it has not happened already in this country, which is significant given that the community has been established here for decades, that honour killings are known of and despite the presence of the well-known extremist groups. After all, the Jay Smith character shown in Unholy War seems unafraid to proselytise to Muslims in Hyde Park, and he is not alone as I have personally seen on visits to Speakers' Corner. I don't believe that apostasy is such a big issue for Muslims, perhaps because it's quite rare. It's only really an issue for Muslims who see a family member leave Islam.
